FOREWORD

The Lord’s move today is to recover the proper and practical church life for His full expression. In the church life the first and basic item of its practicality is the meeting life. Besides our experience and enjoyment of Christ, nothing is more crucial and vital than the meetings of the church. God’s people are a meeting people and every gathering should be a wonderful exhibition of the Christ each one daily experiences and enjoys as well as a testimony of His victory over Satan and of the oneness of His Body, the church. It should also be a most pleasant time, one that is refreshing and nourishing to all the saints and one that is living, rich, uplifted, and full of rejoicing.

The Lord in these recent days has further opened His Word concerning the meeting life of the church. We are thankful that this book, which is composed of messages given by Witness Lee in 1982 in Anaheim, California and Irving, Texas, could be made available to all the Lord’s children. Its contents unveil in a new and fresh way the biblical revelation concerning the gathering together of God’s people.

The most complete type of the church in the Old Testament is the children of Israel. Following their salvation from Egypt out from under the oppression of Pharaoh and the bondage of the Egyptians, God’s first requirement was that His redeemed ones hold a feast unto Him with one another (Exo. 5:1). This assembling was a time of rejoicing and a strong exhibition of God’s victory over and their deliverance from the tyranny and slavery of Satan.

Eventually, God’s leading and guiding brought the children of Israel to God’s habitation, the tabernacle and later the temple. The tabernacle and temple typify Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God (John 1:14; 2:19; Col. 2:9), as the dwelling place of God on this earth. The different sacrifices offered at the appointed feasts also typify Christ. All the offerings—the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering—were the means for God’s redeemed ones to enter into God’s habitation where they dwelt in and with God as a mutual abode. They were also food for God, the offering ones, and all the priests. When the children of Israel gathered together in oneness, both God and His people were fully satisfied with Christ. God also dwelt with them as His people and they dwelt with Him as their God. The full unveiling and the fulfillment of all these types concerning the meeting life of the church is in the New Testament, particularly in the Gospel of John where Christ is revealed as the tabernacled God and as the fulfillment of all the offerings. Our experience today of these glorious types is made real and realized by our enjoyment of Christ as the Spirit of reality (John 15:26; 16:13-15).

We pray that the following pages of this book with its clear vision will become a revelation to all who read them. May more and more of the Lord’s children become those who are experiencing and enjoying Christ day by day as all the offerings for the church meetings, having Christ as their practical entrance into the Triune God as their dwelling place (John 17:21). Here God and all the saints are satisfied with Christ, and God has His living testimony and expression on the earth through His church.

Note: We hope that many will benefit from these spiritual riches. However, for the sake of avoiding confusion, we ask that none of these materials be downloaded or copied and republished elsewhere, electronically or otherwise. Living Stream Ministry retains full copyright on all these materials and hopes that our visitors will respect this.

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About Living Stream Ministry

Living Stream Ministry publishes the works of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, providing the authoritative and definitive collections of treasures from these two servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. The writings of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee focus on the enjoyment of the divine life, which all the believers possess, and on the building up of the church, the goal of God's work with man in this age.

Noise Words

Common words, such as "and", "is", "but", and "the", also known as noise words, are bypassed in a search. The search string, the Spirit & who, would result in an error since who, which stands by itself, is a noise word. The following is a list of noise words:

Ranking

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Content that includes the search words in close proximity to each other are ranked above those that do not. Therefore, a portion of a book that has the search words in close proximity may have a higher ranking than another portion of a book that has a higher hit count but the words are not in close proximity to one another. Therefore, we also include a search word hit count for reference.

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Search Scope

Include All Word Forms

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Note

Common words, such as "and", "is", "but", and "the", also known as noise words, are bypassed in a search. A list of all noise words is as follows: